‘Athénaïs, we play cards all the time, we lose, debts are piling up like clouds. I owe money everywhere – to my tailor, my gunsmith, my friends. Financially, we have no support, and we are embarking upon a perilous life.’
A valet de table brought Athénaïs a plate of oysters, ‘all alive’, and some cabbage with bacon for Louis-Henri. The molluscs’ muscles had already been snipped in the kitchen, so the fair blonde needed only to raise them up, tilt the shell and let the flesh slide between her lips. As in the time of Ancient Rome, she preferred her oysters milky, so before swallowing them, she bit the pouch. The milk ran to the edge of her lips: a few ducs looked on, and the temperature rose. They tugged at their collars whilst the Marquis de Montespan continued, ‘In five months, we have already exhausted the fifteen thousand livres of annual pension my parents send me, and the interest on the dowry paid by your parents, who do not have vast means either. And everything is dear in Paris, and two servants in the house! Everything costs double or triple here. One hundred livres the rent for the apartments, maintenance of the carriage and the coachman costs twelve livres a day. So I have taken a decision ...’
‘Are we going to live in the foothills of the Pyrenees in your Château de Montespan?’ smiled the marquise dreamily, swallowing another oyster, just as the asparagus and red beans were brought to their table.
‘Nay, for ’twould not be good enough for you. Ennobled by Louis XIII as a reward for services rendered by an ancestor, the land of the two villages – Antin and Montespan – was established as a marquisate. The family settled first in the chateau at Antin, but because it was about to collapse, they removed to the one at Montespan. Until that chateau, too, was in dire condition. And so they went to live at Bonnefont, where I was born. Alas, it is not a fine chateau. With its broken stones, covered in brambles, surrounded by the stagnant water of the moat, it is not worthy of you…’
‘What, then, is your idea to set things aright, my fine husband?’ she asked Louis-Henri, giving him as always an amused smile.
She picked up an asparagus shoot and raised it to her lips as if she were playing a flute. She turned her gaze towards the comtes in the room, who lifted a corner of the tablecloth to wipe their brows, whilst Louis-Henri continued with what he had to say.
‘I will go to serve in the army, pay the blood tribute, and become captain of a company of pikemen.’
Athénaïs continued to look at the dining hall, at the velvet curtains in the windows, the bouquets of flowers on the tables.
‘Monsieur, I forbid you to put a single one of your charming feet upon a battlefield.’ Then she looked Louis-Henri straight in the eye. ‘Your three brothers have already gone to their deaths in combat, and you are made for peace. Do not do it for me. We shall—’
But Montespan interrupted her. ‘It is the only way out, for aristocrats do not have the right to work, and business and trade are forbidden to us. A military exploit would also be the most glorious way to obtain amnesty from His Majesty for my family’s sins. I have been considering it for a long time, waiting for a war. Fortunately, a city in Lorraine has just rebelled against the King’s power, and he has decided to besiege it. This is my long-awaited opportunity. I will go further into debt to equip my troops but I dream only of a battle to rescue me from obscurity.’
‘You are not eating?’ asked the marquise, astonished, pecking at a piece of bacon from her husband’s plate. ‘Will it be dangerous? What is the problem with that city? Is it not the one that defends Metz, Lunéville and Nancy?’
‘Last year, Charles IV, Duc de Lorraine, agreed by treaty to give the city of Marsal to the King of France. But he has reneged on his promise, on the deceitful pretext that the treaty was signed only by his nephew. The King has announced his intention to send an expeditionary corps to persuade the duc to honour his commitment. And I have volunteered, enthusiastically.’
‘But what if you should die there!’ exclaimed Athénaïs, her eyes suddenly misting over.
‘Then the name of Marsal,’ smiled Louis-Henri, ‘would for ever make you think of me. But nothing shall befall me. This campaign will bring us a host of advantages … And since to please God it is not necessary to cry or to starve, let us laugh, my dear, and eat our fill! May I have this oyster?’
Beneath the stars as they returned to Paris, the Montespans’ carriage clattered along the road, and the coachman knew only too well that the shaking was not solely the result of the ruts along the King’s highway. Inside the vehicle, Françoise-Athénaïs straddled her husband frenetically (oysters, asparagus, ‘Aphroditic’ beans?). They faced one another, their mouths clamped together. The marquise squeezed her thighs to prevent the virile member from escaping as they jolted along. Louis-Henri clung to her with all his strength: ‘Hold tight to me, lest I come undone.’
A company of pikemen marched at sixty paces a minute to the rhythm of drums, oboes, fifes and trumpets playing military music. Their mounted captain was none other than the Marquis de Montespan.
He observed his infantry soldiers as they advanced across a wide plain surrounded by a circular plateau, wooded in places. Marsal, the fortified city they were to take by storm, sat in the hollow of a natural basin.
These men under Louis-Henri’s command, marching doggedly, were clumsy farm boys that a recruiting sergeant had found in the region of Chartres.
‘Several of them are bound to be killed,’ Athénaïs had sighed.
‘Whether they die stirring the earth in front of an enemy town or stirring it in a field in Beauce, it is still in the service of the King,’ her husband had said dismissively.
The pikemen carried a pike two toises in length to confront the enemy cavalry. When the gates in the walled city were opened and the charge was given, they would have to ram their weapons deep into the horses’ guts; there would be fountains of blood splattering cloth, clothes would be torn, and all of it would cost him … the marquis added up his expenses.
War was a ruinous undertaking. The aristocrat who bought a military commission also had to finance his company: provide for horses, carts, mules, household and camp utensils, tents, beds, dishes. A gentleman’s soldiers were not allowed to have their ‘king’s bread’ and their uniforms had to be bought for them. Louis-Henri watched as his Beaucerons advanced.
Every item of the entire iron-grey outfit – jacket, breeches, boots, cravat, helmet – must have cost upwards of … but he could not shout out to them, ‘Mind your clothing!’ And then, they ate vast quantities, these soldiers who were about to face a horse: two pounds of bread, a pound of meat and a pint of wine, in addition to the five sols of pay each day. So much to disburse! Particularly as the marquis had also bought himself three rows of fusiliers – one row to shoot, one preparing to shoot, and one reloading their muskets, the lot of them moving forward, in turn, behind the pikemen. Louis-Henri, on a white horse, commanded them to remain calm and quiet so that they could hear the orders, and reminded them that they were to fight in silence and that each man had always to have a bullet in his mouth, to reload all the more quickly.
Montespan, in the vanguard, was not afraid, this 2 September 1663. And although this was his first battle, the Gascon was suddenly fired up, gripping his taffeta standard and dreaming of nothing but ripping open the enemy. He knew that this was his opportunity to prove his bravery and – if he was not slain – to hope for some financial largesse – at last – on the part of a grateful sovereign.
He was not afraid when he came across sappers digging blast holes for explosives at the foot of the walls, nor to know that when they collapsed the moment would have come for hand-to-hand fighting, and he would have to go at it, steel against flesh! He knew why he was there, above all for whom he was there. The thought of his wife and the comfort he would bestow upon her carried him forward. The pikemen encouraged one another, shouting, ‘Kill! Kill!’ The